ASter Review

Everyone step aside, I’m telling a story again! This time it’s in parts!

Part One

He was overjoyed, because she had accepted his confession.

He and she had known each other for years, practically growing up together… even her twin sister said so.

Tomorrow was the day of their agreed first date, and he was so excited he could barely contain himself.

But on the day of the date, after waiting for what felt like forever, what he got wasn’t her — it was a phone call from her twin sister.

On the phone, her sister told him she’d been in a car accident… she was in the hospital, in critical condition, and he needed to get there fast.

By the time he reached the hospital, she was already gone. His world collapsed.

Part Two

He liked her, and she liked him.

But they never had that one opportunity — the chance to meet, to know each other, to fall in love.

So when his mom ran into her mom, the two parents hit it off and hatched a little plan.

Through a “coincidence” engineered by that plan, he ended up eating a bento she’d “just happened” to make an extra of, and just like that, they met.

After that, things went exactly as you’d imagine — their feelings for each other developed fast. He decided to ask her out on a date, and to confess afterward.

But on the day of the date, he got a call from home: his little sister had been in a car accident and was in the hospital.

He dropped the date and rushed to the hospital. After a flurry of panic, he learned his sister wasn’t in any immediate danger.

The weight lifted off his shoulders, and he remembered he’d stood her up. He hurried to contact her to apologize, but the call wouldn’t go through, and she stopped coming to school.

After a lot of running around, he finally saw her again. He apologized, explaining his sister had been in a car accident and that’s why he missed their date.

She wasn’t angry. In fact, she said she couldn’t have made it that day either, and she was the one who should apologize.

It turned out her mother had passed away a few days earlier — the day before his sister’s accident. She was grieving at the time and probably couldn’t have gone on the date anyway.

He tried to comfort her but couldn’t do a thing. He wanted to confess, but she turned him down. She said over and over that she liked him, but right now she was too heartbroken to accept.

Losing a family member is naturally devastating. It made sense she’d say no.

The next day, she met a reporter — someone covering the accident who’d come to her for details. After that, she learned the shocking sequence of events.

The day her mother died, her father had seemed a bit cold, and she got furious, convinced he didn’t love her mother. On the drive home in his car, she angrily opened the door and got out to walk on her own, and something fell from her person.

It was what her mother had given her on her deathbed…

She dashed into the road to pick it up. Her father shouted that it was dangerous, but she didn’t hear him, and a car came straight at her.

Swerving to avoid her reckless dash, the car veered to the side, lost control, and hit two people. The driver herself was severely injured.

She didn’t remember what happened after that — or rather, she’d forgotten even the shocking images from before. It was this reporter’s second interview that brought it all back.

So she was the one responsible for the accident. If she hadn’t run out, it never would have happened, and his sister never would have been hit.

She later learned that another girl in her class had been struck and killed — a girl who also had a twin sister… and the driver who hit them was a woman too, who died on the spot…

And soon after, she learned that his sister, though fine right after the crash, had developed aftereffects — her vision was starting to deteriorate…

Because of her recklessness, she’d caused two deaths, and the one survivor was losing her sight. She was utterly unforgivable…

She couldn’t forgive herself. And then he appeared again.

He tried everything to comfort her, and in the end she was moved by him and agreed to spend the rest of her life atoning.

Together, they went to apologize to the victims… including the dead driver’s son, the dead classmate’s twin sister, and his little sister…

After that, he decided to become a doctor in the future to save more people, and she decided to become a nurse — to save more people, and to atone.

The two of them stayed together, walking toward the future.

Part Three

She loved kendo, and there was someone in the kendo club she liked — him.

It was no secret that she and he were a couple; even her brother knew.

One day, during a kendo match, the rain was pouring down as they headed home, and a speeding car suddenly lost control and knocked her to the side.

She was taken to the hospital, and soon her brother and a flustered him showed up. She joked that she was fine, just a bump.

But shortly after she was discharged, she noticed something wrong with her body.

Her vision was getting worse and worse. He rushed her back to the hospital in a panic, and the doctor said she would soon go blind — it was an aftereffect of the accident.

Her world crumbled. He said he’d still stay with her.

Soon she couldn’t see at all, and she asked to break up — she didn’t want to hold him back.

He said he didn’t mind, and soon after, he proposed.

She happily accepted, and they lived happily ever after.

Even though she couldn’t see, she had him. He was her eyes.

Part Four

His mother died suddenly…

In a traffic accident.

He heard that his mother had hit two people, the car itself was mangled, and she died inside it.

Despite the pain, he quietly accepted it.

His mother was an art teacher, and that’s when she appeared — she was his mother’s student.

She saw him alone and started trying to give him warmth: cooking for him, talking to him, trying to give him the kind of warmth his mother should have.

But soon he came under intense public pressure. The label “murderer’s son” was used to mock him by many, and they weren’t wrong — his mother had killed people in that crash. He really was a murderer’s son.

He didn’t know what to do, and then she appeared. She told him it wasn’t his fault, or his mother’s fault. They were good people. Not murderers.

Gradually, her warmth melted the shadow in his heart, and he realized he’d fallen in love with her.

Later, they got together and became a great couple.

Part Five

Her twin sister died suddenly one day in a car accident…

Afterward, she saw him looking like he’d lost his soul.

He was her twin sister’s boyfriend, and now her sister was gone — but he still wouldn’t accept it.

He stubbornly believed her sister was just sleeping in the hospital and would wake up eventually. He needed to be ready.

He even kept fulfilling the promises he’d made with her sister — like eating bento together somewhere at noon, even though her sister never showed up.

She couldn’t stand watching anymore and decided to save him.

She tried with all her might to make him accept that her sister — his girlfriend — was dead, but he kept refusing.

Finally, she cried, pouring out her own feelings for her twin sister. Her tears finally made him understand: his girlfriend was gone… and never coming back…

She was relieved and glad to see him accept reality and face a new life…

And soon, after spending so much time together, he realized he’d fallen a little in love with her…

Because they were twins, he sometimes felt she was so much like her sister. He often felt she almost was her sister…

In the end, he confessed… She hesitated again and again, then accepted…

Maybe this would comfort her sister’s soul? Because her sister had said she wanted all three of them to be happy. Her sister was gone now, leaving just him and her — but the two of them were happy.

Part Six

She felt her own pain. Maybe she was going to die.

She remembered being hit by a car… her injuries were severe… her twin sister was crying and shouting beside the stretcher, saying her boyfriend would be there soon… begging her to hold on.

She felt she couldn’t hold on anymore. She asked her sister if she liked her boyfriend — him.

Her sister honestly nodded…

“I knew it… I should have noticed sooner… then please be happy…” She left those words and departed from the world… She entrusted her boyfriend to her sister…

And later, just as she wished, her sister and he became a couple — he who had once been her boyfriend too.

Winter snow began to fall, and her sister and he came together to visit her grave.

All three of them must be happy — that was their promise.

Maybe it had already come true.

So that’s the entirety of this game called ASter. As you can see, the story is built around this one car accident, with each chapter following a different person connected to it — it’s a pretty novel structure, and even now it still feels fresh. Goes to show how formulaic eroge have become…

The Japanese praised it to high heaven. The game’s own tagline emphasizes “a story without miracles, but with hope.” No miracles naturally means the dead heroine doesn’t come back. And hope means everyone trapped in their own predicaments because of the crash manages to walk out and face a new life.

The game came out in 2007. The company’s probably long gone. Worth mentioning: the OP and ED still hold up quality-wise. The voice cast is stacked. The art isn’t dated even by today’s standards — clearly that KID-style coloring (or maybe everything looked like that back then).

A lot of thought clearly went into the planning. The name Aster, in Japan, is a flower — the aster. Its meanings are “remembrance,” “I won’t forget you,” “thinking of someone far away.” Basically, longing for the past, for your other half, for someone distant you can’t see. The key is probably the male lead’s longing for his dead girlfriend.

The story itself, I think, isn’t worth dwelling on. No crazy twists, no main plot. It starts with a common route — the male lead and female lead’s sweet romance — then she dies in a car crash and the game branches into multiple perspectives: victims, perpetrators, etc. Then the After routes, and finally the grand finale, which is just the male lead and the female lead’s twin sister as a couple visiting the grave, signaling a future full of hope. Life goes on.

The music… I have a hard time saying. The melodies are good, but the arrangements are too low-rent — heavy on that electronic atmosphere. You could say that’s just how things were back then, but Memories Off wasn’t like this…

Because of its unique sorrowful atmosphere and its honest portrayal of love and death, the game practically reached “everyone who plays it says it’s good” status. But is it really that good?

The story’s fine. The concept’s fine. The central message is fine. But is it really that good? I have my doubts. The game has obvious flaws.

What flaws? It’s too fucking long…

You saw the story I wrote above — that’s the entire content of the game… and the game itself is hundreds of times longer than that. Endless daily life scenes, boring dialogue, and long self-indulgent jokes made reading it genuinely painful. After the common route ends there’s an OP, and the common route itself is long as hell. The setups are so formulaic you’ve probably memorized them if you’ve watched enough anime. Maybe it’s just old. Were Gal game players really that innocent back then?

The daily life stuff is hard to praise. Memories Off 2 did it better. Ever17 and the like did it better. At least those had something to chew on — human nature or whatever. This one just has “Oh, you’re here.” “Oh, no I’m not.” “Oh, I was actually looking forward to it.” — that kind of forced moe appeal. And maybe it’s because of the fan translation group — I have to hand it to them, they were so dedicated to accuracy that there’s no Japanese flavor at all. Which also means a lot of the dialogue reads as genuinely stupid… Yeah, sometimes without the “onii-chan” and the other two-dimensional anime slang, Japanese conversations really do sound dumb…

Of course, the game does deliver when it comes to the key plot moments — they’re just less than 10% of the main story. In other words, if you pulled out the important parts you could write a short story (like I did above), and the rest is all padding… and not even good padding. You could argue the other scenes are there to show the sweetness of romance… but man… that stuff is just absurd. I can’t even articulate it. It’s like that cliché of running into a cute girl with a piece of toast in your mouth and seeing her panties — that level of stale. No, even more stale than that. I just don’t get it.

Later I looked up the game’s staff… and found out this scenario writer also planned another game called Chiisana Kanojo no Serenade. That game’s nickname is “The Stinky, Endless, Sleepy Little Serenade of Hers,” so I have reason to believe this writer is exactly the kind of person who loves rambling and dragging out endlessly boring filler…

So what’s the verdict on this game…

I don’t recommend it. It wastes too much time. Look, I left it sitting for ages. I only finished it while waiting for car repairs at a dealership, watching some brats yank each other’s balls around and playing on a handheld. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered. The dialogue’s too formulaic, the developments are predictable, and the only thing left is maybe the novel structure?

And here we have to mention the game’s constant insistence: “There are no miracles in this world.” I get it — maybe the writer thought people would assume the dead girlfriend would come back, since that happens all the time. But in this game, when people die, they stay dead. Rare for a game to kill off the heroine right at the start and keep her dead the whole way through, without even having her show up as a ghost to help investigate her own death (yes, you know what game I’m talking about).

In that light, the premise really is bold. Even now I doubt anyone would dare use it. Aster used it so perfectly I doubt there’s another one like it. But if you keep hammering on about how you “created no miracles, but created hope,” it starts to feel a little pretentious…

Because this world doesn’t have miracles in the first place!!?

Okay, the story really is decent — but it’s only good enough to write a short story or a long tweet to squeeze tears out of the emotionally simple.